Blue Ebony
by Ekoaleko
Summary: Island of Happiness. Chelsea was washed up on the abandoned island against her own will, and Denny actually likes it here. Reason never had to make sense. Chapter six: Seasons.
1. One: Washed Up

A/N: _I figured this fandom needed some Island of Happiness love. I'm not sure where this random inspiration came from - perhaps from the game itself, or simply over how angry I was at my writer's block, which caused my months-long absence. But here's my newest fic; I'm not really sure where I'm going with it, or if I'm continuing it, but I probably will as the inspiration keeps coming in. So…tell me what you think? Thanks. (:_

_Disclaimer (which will only be said once; I don't see why people feel the need to repeat it in every chapter...): I don't own Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness or any of its characters. _

**Blue Ebony. **

**--**

It was cold out today. The rain fell like liquid bullets, clinging to the young farmer's hair and clothes, making trails down her dirt-drizzled skin. Yet she merely sat there so indifferently in the sand, her being glued a few feet away from the shoreline, knees cradled against her chest. Her bandana, marinated with sweat this morning and doused with rainwater now, flapped wildly in the brisk wind.

She was cold today. Her heartbeat thumped slowly from lack of sleep and stress, her eyelids heavy and her limbs tired. Her burnt, unnaturally russet arms trembled in the kisses of a sharp and whirling gust.

She was so _tired_. The boat she'd been on the other day - the one leading to Mineral Town, where she had planned to begin her new life, as a new person - had been shipwrecked.

The dark and thick clouds had rolled over the sails, the sun lost in its spreading haze. Lightning punctured the ominous sky's barrier, ripping out and thunder shrieking its warnings, like a father's low pleads to his young and daring daughter. The waves, dark as ebony wood, had begun to churn, the ship being the sky's only ingredient in the ocean of a mixing bowl.

Faster and faster, she remembered the ship spinning around her. She could almost feel again the becoming of the bruises on her skin as she slid and collided with furniture, as her knees banged against the floor beneath - or possibly, above her. She could taste the tears from her eyes, relive the racing, panicking, of her heartbeats, taste the fluid from her bleeding and bruised bottom lip. The darkness had swallowed her shortly after that and her eyes had closed, all but giving up hope until they veered and crashed onto the shore of an island, obliterating half the dock. They had landed _here_.

Where was here? Taro, one of the few survivors of the wreck, an old man she was in awe had survived, had showed her around briefly. But she could not speak her mind, nor could she shake the fear for the unknown. This was an abandoned island, a deserted ground, with not even ten inhabitants.

And now she was a _farmer_. An inept, inexperienced girl with no business as a farmer, and all she wanted now was to go home. The problem was, she _had_ no home anymore. No, she sold her home in the city, the high-paying room in the apartment, so she could start fresh in _Mineral Town _- but where was she? On some derelict piece of land that had probably been ditched for good reason.

And she was all alone.

For the next week after the wreck, Taro had placed her in charge of farm work. It took a full afternoon just to till enough soil, and then plant the puny seeds which would eventually grow into flavourless crops. She planted them in the manicured dirt and then dragged a deformed watering can she'd found inside the farmhouse over to the gushing stream. When the can was half-full, it was still much too heavy, and as she dragged it across the debris on the fields, water sloshed around and spilled out. She had to make many trips back and forth until she was done watering, by the time it was disconcertingly dark, and gnats had swarmed around her and tore at her clammy skin.

Seven long, miserable days later, she sat solitarily at the beach, not another soul present. She remembered Taro telling her some other people had come to live on the island, and for what reason, she couldn't possibly imagine. She hadn't really bothered to meet any of them.

Her eyes flickered to the dock, where she envisioned herself sprinting off the edge of it, the wind exhilarating her instead of slashing at her, feeling a rush of adrenaline instead of a stab of loss. She imagined herself, strong and satiated instead of frail and famished, diving off the final steps of the half-destroyed dock and swimming all the way back home, her limbs never growing tired, lungs never needing oxygen.

She flinched, and the movie in her mind died, when her bumpy calves began to itch and accidentally looked down at the long, lined stick to her left.

She'd forgotten about the fishing rod, but now that she recalled it, she remembered why she was here. She'd come down to the beach at around three in the afternoon, determined to catch something, no matter the size; she was just plain _sick _of foraging for sour herbs and wild grasses she wasn't even sure were edible.

She didn't know the time now, but she realized the rain had subsided to a drizzle, and the once blue horizon had begun to fade into orange, red, and yellow stripes, the colours of fire and warmth. She reached tentatively for the handle of the wooden rod and stared at the naked, crooked hook at the end. A small part of her, the ghost of the optimistic self she once was, yearned to cast her line once more, to dig up some more worms for bait and try again. But her more realistic and experienced self, the one that knew she wouldn't be catching anything any time soon, was overcome with sudden anger.

She was angry that the sky had decided to shoot lightning daggers at her and send the ship flying off course. She was angry that the know-it-all old man had forced her into a new occupation that didn't suit her in the least. She was angry that she'd left the city, even if she hated it and was sick of the rancid smell of smoke and pollution and industrial exhaust. She was angry that even after she'd sat here all afternoon, she hadn't caught a single damn fish.

She furled her fist around the rod and chucked it behind her shoulder with all her feeble might, the idle fingers on her other hand etching into the ground as she pushed down, wishing she could sink into the sand and never resurface. But her depressive hopes had been silenced when she heard a short, abrupt "Ow" coming from behind her.

Her body reacted immediately, jerking, her balled-up position resulting in her side falling against the sand. Her previous wounds and bruises exploded with pain as she curled against the damp shore, light footfalls closing in on her. She squeezed her eyes shut, not in fear, but in disgust. Disgust that someone was seeing her like this, her hair matted, her clothes weathered and dirty, her skin burnt and bitten.

"Hey..." She heard a voice from behind her, gentle and cautious, but rough and urgent, the voice of a young man. The unfamiliar warmth of a hand clasped on her shoulder and she cringed, but it was not removed.

She peeled her eyes open slowly, feeling alien to this sort of interaction. One week ago she'd been perfectly normal - what had this place done to her?

"Are you alright?"

She squinted at the young man crouching over beside her, the fires of the horizon providing the radiance that allowed her sight. His skin was a lightly toasted brown - ah, _toast_ - the thought made her stomach growl momentarily. His long, chestnut hair curled all around his head and slightly below his ears, most of it hidden under a faded bandana. His eyes were also brown, a certain brown she couldn't name, but liked.

The questioned had bounced off her ears; the words didn't mean a thing. She could only hear his voice, nothing else, and she wondered why it sounded so _good_.

"Were you shipwrecked? Are you lost?" He looked worriedly at her, scanning her body in case of injury or anything out-of-place. She cringed at the attention.

"N-no," she managed to squeak, and she shrank away again, though he only closed the distance once more.

"Do you live around here?" His chocolate eyes were so determined, his lean body bent like it was so strong. He was practically emulating confidence, power - and she envied every second of it.

She nodded dizzily, her mind barren of thoughts.

"Where?" he asked slowly, and leaned in discreetly.

Again, she noticed and winced. "The farm," she whispered, her dry throat aching as she spoke.

"Where is it? The one in the north?"

She nodded again weakly. She was just about ready for a "Well, that's pretty far, but good luck getting there, see ya" until she felt the ground disappear from beneath her, replaced by a pair of strong arms. Her breath was knocked out of her in a gust, and she got the urge to start thrashing and flailing like a fish out of water - but for the first time, she knew better. She wasn't being gutted or cooked or eaten. She was being _saved_.

The ground seemed to teeter from beneath her, and when she began to feel a bit nauseous, her eyelids slipped shut. She could feel the boy peeking at her and buried her face in the warm fabric over his chest. _Warmth_. She tunnelled deeper into the comforting, pleasant sensation, and noticed his surprise when he paused for half a second. He kept walking, though, and she felt oddly appeased.

"What's your name?" She could feel the rumble in his chest as he spoke.

She had to think for a brief moment. "Chelsea," she finally croaked.

Chelsea pried one eye open briefly to see him smiling down at her, his face free of contempt or judgement. "Denny."

**--**

A/N: _The Chelsea x Denny pairing isn't set in stone. Just so you know. It might be, it might not. As the writer, I have _no _idea. Review? _


	2. Two: Impulse

A/N: _First of all, thank you for the awesome feedback. Second, I've been coming up with ideas in my head all day, and I finally found one to work with. But even if I have a plotline now, it's flexible, and I'm up for suggestions. :) Hm…there's not much to say. Don't expect every update to be this frequent, I just got bitten by the writing bug is all. And sorry for the slowness and telling, not showing; my beginnings tend to be mediocre, but I'll definitely get things rolling soon. And expect the chapters to get longer. Way longer. Apologies if it irritates you that I haven't followed the game storyline exactly; I'm trying to, but this isn't a storyline fic. So, shutting up now, hope you enjoy it._

**Impulse.**

--

The stars were out that night.

Chelsea cuddled up against Denny on the vast field, his warmth burning pleasantly against her dank skin. The grass beneath them was long and a pristine shade of green, darkened by the velvet enveloping the night sky. The stars were splayed out like sand thrown across a flat surface, clinging to one another and scattered about. Millions of glittering stars, twinkling just for them.

Chelsea reached up and toyed with Denny's bandana. "Hey," she enthused, her voice not croaky or scratchy like it had been for the past week, but with her normal, bright lilt. "Let's run away."

He gave her a confused look, tilted his toasted head. "Where? How?"

"I don't know." She smiled and laid her cheek against his shoulder. "Anywhere. Let's just run away and never come back."

"But what about the island?"

"What about it?"

--

The dream shattered like a thousand glass pieces. Chelsea awoke, not dramatically, with beads of sweat rolling down her face or shooting into a semiconscious sitting position, but just tentatively. Without dwelling on it, she knew it had been a dream. One she couldn't fully understand, in fact.

She was too tired to understand much of anything. She was restless; her limbs were heavy as if her clothes were soaking wet, the bitten red bumps on her skin subsiding slightly to show the burns. She pulled a hand up to the crown of her head, twisted it into her long brown hair, and her face automatically furled in disgust.

If it was some natural girl instinct or just plain hygienic intuition, she didn't know. But there was one thing she was sure of: she hadn't showered or bathed in _a week _and not even the apocalypse could stop her from doing so now.

She rolled out of bed, feeling disgusting, peeling open the cracked wooden door. A flash of memory from the night before and the dream, definitely connected, slithered through her mind, but she pushed it away for safekeeping. She could think, sort things out later. All she needed now was a bath.

With last night's events swirling behind her like the light breeze in the air, she made a beeline for the stream, where she wished she could just wash the pain away.

--

This morning's catch was bad.

Usually he liked to come up with more elaborate words or explanations for how his catch was, or use metaphors; it was dorky, something he only did with himself. But today's outing could only be described with one word…well, maybe two: bad. And distracting.

He'd gotten about three tugs on his line in total. That morning, he'd set out a bit before nine - not that he had any watches or anything - with his fishing rod slung over his shoulder, a small knife in his pocket, and a bucket of bait in his spare hand. Confidently, he settled down at his favourite fishing spot, right at the edge of the broken dock with his legs dangling off and almost touching the smooth surface of the water. He stuck a worm onto his hook, cast the line out, and his thoughts and memories collected like a school of minnows.

How could he have forgotten? How could he have possibly not recalled carrying that girl back to her farm just last night? He was suddenly overcome with worry, with embarrassment. Worried if she was alright, if she'd woken up after he'd put her sleeping form on her hard bed. Embarrassed that he had just run up to her and hauled her back to her house, no explanation.

He could relive the moment in his head. Walking back from town - well, what could be called town in due time - after familiarizing himself with his surroundings. He had been mentally marking down the best fishing spots in town, and hands-down decided his favourite was the ocean, where he was heading, coming back early as the rain began to fall.

The river had too small fish, both on the west and east sides, and though the wooden, once sturdy bridges had collapsed in the middle, he had managed to leap across the gaps. That day, he'd only had time to check out the mountains and the little forest area before it. There had been a pond a few ways in, but there was a faded sign beside it. He could only make out the obscure word _Goddess_, but he knew right away the pond was considered 'sacred,' and thought it would be rude to fish there. So he left with nothing gained, the formerly pounding, merciless rain relenting as he paced.

The night before that, he'd capered over one of the east bridges. The weak rocks had crumbled below his footfalls, however, and he'd barely scrambled onto land before he hit the stream.

But just last night, not even a whole day ago, he'd come to the beach, expecting to sit down and fish, but instead saw a distorted blob near the shore. A fishing rod that was in worse condition than his was at the blob's side, who he'd distinguished to be a girl - young woman, specifically - who was crumpled in a ball, leaning ever so slightly to one side. She looked like she would collapse if he laid a finger on her and he would've taken caution approaching her if he hadn't gotten a closer look.

While striding quietly toward her with his eyes zoomed in on her side profile, he'd gotten about fifteen steps away from her when he could see her face, the gushing sunrise providing plenty of natural light to fill in the details. Her eyes, which seemed blue but were half-closed, had the sky's mural reflecting off them. They were heavy, exhausted, almost _dead_ looking. Her hair was a mess, the same colour of brown as his but longer and straighter, caked with dirt and knotted. Her clothes looked wet from the rain that had subdued him earlier, and her skin was blistered and swollen and scorched from the sun. She looked weak. So frail, he perversely wondered if she would crumble away like sand in an hourglass when he moved her.

And then just like that, her tiny knuckle twitched, and the fishing rod by her side sailed over her shoulder. It almost missed him, but it didn't; the rod flew past him but the hook caught just onto the skin of his forearm, scraping it slightly as it whizzed away. The injury wasn't awful, and it didn't hurt _tremendously_ or anything; he was just surprised. An automatic cry flew out of his mouth, past his control.

Just like that, the girl fell onto her side with a start, and she looked so breakable and feeble that it actually hurt to watch.

It also hurt to remember, so he knocked the memory out of his head, frowning, and then with a literal tug of realization, discovered that a fish had just swum away with his bait.

_Tomorrow_, he thought as he hooked on another worm and cast his line a short distance away from the dock. _Today might be too soon, so I__'__ll visit her tomorrow. _

He watched the incessantly rolling waves as if in approval. They lapped the shore gently, always agreeing with whatever unspoken question he'd thrown at them. The waves on the other end crashed loudly against the large rocks, splashing everywhere and making a ruckus. He ignored them.

There was another tug on the end of his line, but he was ready this time. Yanking back and reeling in with his worn, purchased rod with all his might, an enormous fish burst out of the ocean, water dripping and sparkling as it flailed.

"Got you," he grinned.

--

Chelsea sighed contentedly as she pulled her clean, wet clothes back on, tying a knot on the faded red bandana wrapped around her head. Her dripping brown locks tumbled down all around her, and her skin had retained some rashes from scouring it with herbs (it wasn't like she had soap in her pockets), but she didn't at all care now. She was _clean _and she didn't feel nearly as disgusting, and for the same incomprehensible reason, she was happy.

She took but a single step before the old man she'd resented for forcing her into farming came bursting through the clearing, running up to her, his breathing heavy and uneven.

Before she could even say a word, he beat her to it.

"Chelsea! It's Chelsea, right? There's something I want to show you."


	3. Three: Hooked

A/N: _This update came to me like a slap in the face. Well, a very elegant slap in the face, that is, haha. I thought the descriptions seemed a bit dry, but I'm glad people are liking them; it's a bit new for me, too. So…yeah…the plot will be taking off soon. Note the genre very prominently: romance/drama. -cough- __**DRAMA**__ -cough- Heh, yeah, that'll be fun. Thanks for keeping up with the story, invisible stalkers and reviewing stalkers alike. It'd be nice if you told me what you thought. :D The chapters are starting to get longer too, as promised. Whew, it's nice to know SOMETHING is going right... well, read on... _

**Hooked.**

**--**

Chelsea gazed around herself in wonder as Taro led her through the abandoned town. She hadn't really focused on the details of the island since she got here; she was either too shocked, dejected, zoned out, or too weak, stumbling instead of walking and staring at the ground as she trudged through it. But now, though her stomach was mostly empty, her body felt nurtured and her afternoon senses were keen as she absorbed every bit of detail.

The deserted buildings, consequentially, were not in shambles - they weren't even in very poor condition. It looked like whoever had ditched them simply got up and walked away. It was highly improbable, but a long time ago, the streets could've been bustling with people, selling exotic items for exotic prices, no individual voice heard among all the commotion… Chelsea could imagine it vividly, the flaming purple turbans of the merchants, fast-speaking foreigners bargaining as loudly as they could…

But now, in the present, which was all that mattered, it was mostly quiet, the birds chirping and fluttering as the sunbeams hit off their tiny wings. The gravel crunched with each step she and Taro took, the miniature pools of converged mud and rainwater on the ground having disappeared, liquid trickling off the trees, which were the purest green she'd ever seen. The sky was amazingly clear, such a contrast to the black and star-littered night in her dream. If anyone had ever asked her for a sky blue crayon in second grade, or described something as _blue as the sky_…this was what they were talking about. Definitely this. As if seeing through new eyes, Chelsea stared at the most beautiful thing she'd probably ever seen.

She just remembered what she was doing when Taro coughed absently into his palm. She wondered if his new living conditions tampered with his health, but she couldn't seem to voice her concern - it wasn't out of resentment, but she was never very good at expressing her emotions. Eye contact and obvious gestures were about as deep as she got.

"So, can I have a hint?" she asked dully as they travelled in silence, still staring at the sunlit scenery.

"Nope," Taro responded gleefully, and despite his cough, he sounded fit as a twenty year-old. "You'll absolutely love it, though, my darlin'."

She held in a sigh; she really had better things to do. She realized she'd forgotten to water her neglected crops this morning and a gloomy cloud settled over her, envisioning a withered pile of snapped stems when she returned to her farm. The golden glow of the sun seemed to dim a little as well, clouds flocking in front of it.

Taro misinterpreted her despondence. "Okay, okay, I'll tell you," he gave in a couple minutes later. "We're here, anyway."

Chelsea looked around in confusion, not having noticed the atmospheric change - the beach? Why were they at the beach? She stared at the horizon, then at the waves, and her cheeks reddened at the sight of the shore, exactly where she'd been sitting just yesterday, half-hoping to be swept away. It was hard to be believe those were the same waves that turned dark and grabbed at her ankles; they looked so innocent and…well, there was really no word to describe it. They lapped the shore softly, seeming careful not to disconcert even the sediment on the ground…it just looked so _gentle_. Nurturing and motherly, maybe, but that was a little overdoing it.

"You see that shack over there?"

Her head whirled around and she scanned the perimeter for a shack. A smallish building, in worse condition than the ones in the previous sector, was located near the entrance of the sandy beach. The windows were boarded up and the wooden door creaked as the wind blew it back and forth, in and out of the building.

"Hello? You see it?" Taro called exaggeratedly, and she was pretty sure he would've gotten up on tiptoe and knocked her on the head with his long wooden cane if she hadn't answered immediately after.

"Yeah, I see it."

"Well, it's all yours."

It took her a few seconds to realize the effect and meaning of what the old man had just said.

"Mine?" she repeated in shock. She did a double-take of the shack; she'd never felt any pull of desire when she first lay eyes on it. More like…a case of the shivers. It looked nightmarish, kind of like the overly-decorated, frivolous haunted houses she passed by on Halloween back in her hometown in the suburbs… Well, that might be exaggerating, but she definitely didn't _want _it.

Before she could voice her opinion, though, Taro twisted his cane timidly in his hands, giving her a gauging look. He suddenly looked undeniably guilty. "Well, I was talking with some people in town the other day, and they said they didn't think you were too fond of farming. I mean, I was totally convinced otherwise when I asked if you wanted to take up the job…but I guess not…so I'd like to give you this shack as…uh…reimbursement. And, of course, as an apology present."

_So, like, yeah, sorry you hate your life now __'__cuz of me an__'__ all. _

He might as well have said that; stuck it onto a piece of paper and taped it to her forehead. Because that was about how apologetic he sounded.

Nonetheless, Chelsea could see the direction of the compensation. "Well, thanks," she told him at length, glancing back to appraise the shack. Some livestock, a better watering can, plants that grew themselves, she could make do with. But a shack? What in the world could she do with a shack?

She was startled when she heard a faint groan in the near distance, bursting through her own aimless ideas. Her head snapped over to the horizon - was she going loopy? Had the waves just groaned or something? Had a fish just communicated with her in some magical language of sorts…?

"…Can't catch a thing," she heard bitterly, ending her paranormal misunderstanding on an embarrassing note. "Might as well throw this damn rod into the ocean, let the waves eat it up..."

Her heart caught in her chest, in the same sense as the empty hook at the end of the man's line. Because that was no stranger's voice she was hearing, no ocean's grumbling.

That was no anonymous tangle of dark brown hair or toasted skin or faded purple bandana or lean body or strong arms.

And lastly, she realized, that chocolate gaze was not foreign to her - her beating heart sank like a weight when those familiar eyes flickered back and locked onto hers.

_Thud, thud, thud._

Why couldn't she remember how to breathe?

--

_(Then.) _

Denny muttered to himself as he strode down the road, considering just breaking into a run. He was coming back from foraging for berries - but only finding herbs - and was in a rather sour mood to begin with; not as sour as the herbs, however. He had bumped into an old man on the way, who he'd spoken to briefly once before, when he'd arrived on the island. The man seemed so sure of himself at the time, rather authoritative for someone in rolled-up overalls and a wooden cane - and Denny didn't like it one bit.

So when the old man asked head-on how his "favourite farmer" was doing, he snapped a little.

"What are you talking about?" His nerves had burst instantly, but he knew better than to jump to conclusions. There could be other farmers on the island…he wasn't for sure talking about Chelsea…

"Chelsea, of course." His teeth clicked as they snapped together, but the man didn't notice. "I'm heading over right now to go check up on her - she seems really fond of that farm, huh?" His face was only half artificial. The other half was merely naïve.

"Chelsea…" Denny spoke slowly, teeth gritted. Her weak, exhausted, drained body crumpled in his arms flashed in his mind in red. "Isn't as fond of farming as you _think_." _Or don__'__t think_, he was tempted to add under his breath.

"Oh?" he replied pleasantly. "Why do you think that?"

He not-so-pleasantly replied, "Because she just flopped over half-dead on the beach last night from overworking, and I had to carry her back to her crappy farmhouse. I'm not sure if she was very sober, or a hundred percent _alive_ -" _'__Kay, calm down, you__'__re not supposed to yell at old people__…_"but I can tell you this: she. Does not. Belong. On that farm."

He opened his mouth in shock. An unfitting, resolute look pasted on his face and his eyes narrowed into squints. "Are you threatening me?"

In reality, Denny wasn't threatening him at all. But now that he thought of it, the idea was pretty tempting. "Yeah," he invented flatly, leaning in a bit closer so their breaths mingled. "In fact, if you don't get her _out _of there by tomorrow, then…"

He hadn't finished. He'd simply pivoted and stormed away, just a little satisfied by the fleeting nervous shock on the old man's face.

Then, he entered the sands of the beach.

And fished.

--

_(Now.)_

He wasn't sure what exactly to say.

A few seconds ago he'd been bitterly, and rather immaturely cursing at the fish - or lack of fish - and now, he was staring into the endless eyes of the farmer he couldn't take his mind off of all day. In fact, just a little while ago, he'd been staring tentatively into the blue, blue waves of the ocean and thought he'd seen Chelsea's face in it - _sick, _he thought - and almost jumped in. Just almost.

And now here she was, in the flesh, eyes fixated upon him. She didn't look pleased to see him, and that irked him; in fact, she looked positively _horrified_.

"Uh…hey." He wanted to smack himself for the anticlimactic greeting. He noticed the old man behind her mutter something, cast him a steely glare, and then saunter off with his hands shoved deeply into his pockets.

She was still frozen, and what was going on in her head, he hadn't the slightest clue, so he figured it was probably his cue to _do _something. Throwing his feet from over the edge of the dock and climbing up on his knees, he started nervously towards her.

"Didn't think I'd see you so soon."

Her mouth twitched, as if she were planning on saying something, but abruptly changed her mind.

"So…yeah. I was just over there, doing some fishing…okay, you can stop gaping at me like that; I get mad when I have to eat nasty sour herbs for lunch, okay?" He shot her a twisted grin, unsure if they were on casual enough terms to be allowed to joke around.

But her sudden, wide-mouthed smile answered the unspoken question for him. "I know exactly what you mean," she agreed in her small, almost whispery voice.

_Smack, smack, smack. _

He felt his heart ram against his chest with the force of a tuna fish trying to swim away with his bait. He smiled back, but faltered when he couldn't find the source of his sudden unsteadiness.

"You look kind of stiff…you okay?" His grin widened subconsciously as she blushed at his teasing, but inside, his head was swimming. He hoped she couldn't tell, but _he _was the abnormally stiff one. _He _was the one who couldn't budge an inch unless he was forcibly shoved.

He was the one who couldn't breathe.

--

A/N: _Don't get me wrong: something I hate rushing above all is romance. They are not in love at first sight. They will not immediately elope and make babies, despite insane cheesiness. :D Review? _


	4. Four: Threshold

_A/N: __Okay, to make up for the week-long wait, I bring you…almost 3000 words! (Yeah, yeah, there are some people out there who write chapters that are like… ten thousand words long…but at least pretend to be happy XD). Since people actually read these notes, I won't ramble or give you my life story; this time, I'm actually just going to shut up and let you read. Hurray for subtle plot and eye-clawing mass italics. Thanks to all the reviewers' feedback, and please keep telling me what you think. :D _

**Threshold. **

--

_Thump. _

Chelsea groaned as her torso lurched against the hard surface of the floor. After gasping in shock, feeling projectiles of pain gunning through her body, she considered just laying there, flat on her stomach, going to sleep to find out whether or not she would wake up later.

But the little yellow chick clucked at her, taunted her. With one swift movement, the tiny beast leapt onto her head, flailing until her hair was strewn everywhere, and when she grabbed at it, it flung into the sky and out of her reach.

_Thump. _

She let out another frustrated groan and rolled onto her back.

"_So__…"__ Denny took his eyes off her for the first time, letting it wander the area beyond her shoulder. __"__What__'__s up?__"_

_She shrugged, nervous. What was she supposed to say to her opposite, this high-spirited, determined man? __"__I was just going back to the farm to water the plants.__"__ The boring, tedious truth maddened her. _

"_Oh.__"__ Just a simple, ineffectual noise. She almost expected him to bid her farewell, but of course, her second, more probable expectation was what occurred. __"__Would you mind if I came?__"_

"…_No.__"__ But did he _have_ to look at her like that? _

"Got you!" Chelsea wasn't one to talk to herself, not even mutter or scheme under her breath, but she was so desperate to distract herself from the raw reality of everything that she found her voice rising from her like hot steam. She dived and clutched at what she thought was the feral baby bird, but her fingers met the invisible coals of the empty air.

Her slight back hit the wall of the sturdy chicken coop, which, ridiculously enough, was in better condition than her shoddy farmhouse. Her chest rose and fell as she glared at the chick from across the coop. It returned the same gesture.

_They talked on the way back, Denny asking the questions, and Chelsea giving the answers, her face apprehensive, his looking calm. _

"_Do you like farming?__"__ he asked colloquially after a while, glancing at her every now and then._

_She wondered if she could lie. Better yet, she wondered if she could get away with lying at all. Those chocolate orbs in his skull seemed pretty all-seeing lately. _

"_No, I__'__m not very fond of it,__"__ she admitted plaintively. _

"_Yeah?__"__ He peeked at her again, eternally curious. She hated the weak girl he probably saw, and her face must__'__ve shown it, since he looked quickly away. __"__So what were you, before you came here, if you don__'__t mind me asking?__"_

_She was quiet for a moment. Again, she was left to wonder what was going on through his mind, what he thought was going on in hers. Did he expect her to have been some brilliant scientist? An innovative artist, some bestselling novelist, somebody who could create a plane of indescribable beauty on a vacant white canvas? Did he think she would be some runway model, some film director, a NASCAR driver? Or perhaps his expectations for her were frivolous, which was more than likely. _

"_I__'__ve never really had a career__…__I__'__m a bit young for that. I mean, I__'__ve had some odd jobs, but they__'__re mostly boring ones: babysitting, counterwork, nothing exciting__…"__ She chewed on her bottom lip when he took longer than usual to reply. _

"_What did you want to be?__"__ And his voice, his tone, it sounded like he already knew. _

_This time, she didn__'__t hesitate to answer. __"…__You don__'__t want to know.__"_

"_Actually, I do. You have no idea.__"__ She ascended her gaze and caught Denny staring at her again, his eyes bright, his lips stretched into a playful grin. _

"_It__'__s not very exciting,__"__ she insisted. _

"_Chelsea, Chelsea. I__'__m a fisherman. Call someone else if you want to talk to someone exciting.__"__ Upon hearing this, she was troubled. She knew he had the willpower to be anything he wanted to be. For some reason, she was upset to hear him degrade himself like that__…__and she realized that was probably exactly what he was thinking about her. _

"_I actually wanted to be__…__well__…__a psychologist of sorts.__"__ She stared at her shuffling feet, making sure to avoid eye contact. __"__But later on, I realized I wasn__'__t very good at discerning things, even if they were right in front of my face, much less the human mind. Sometimes I don__'__t even know what__'__s going on through my _own_ head. But, I guess__…__I just wish__…__that I could understand everything a little more. To be able to know someone without really knowing them.__"_

_He was still abnormally quiet, so she tilted her chin to take a look at his face. It was not bemused or shocked, but contemplative. He was staring distantly at the dirt beneath his soles and she wondered briefly if he might trip from his lack of focus on the road. _

"_If it makes you feel any better, sometimes I wish I could understand everything a bit better, too,__"__ he finally spoke, and she felt like he was distancing them as he stepped a bit off centre. __"__When I feel certain things, I can__'__t sort them into emotions or categories. There isn__'__t just sad, mad, and happy. It makes me wonder if things were like this for a reason__…__if we couldn__'__t handle knowing more words than we already do.__"_

_She shrugged at his modest epiphany, which was probably the worst response she could__'__ve given. But he remained faithfully, however distantly by her side, silent and thoughtful. She wondered reticently when this interview would be over. _

_At that instant, Denny cleared his throat, giving her one more gauging, perverse look. __"__So, a psychologist, huh?__"_

_Before she could reply, his serious façade melted as his entire face lit up with an impish grin. __"__I was thinking runway model.__"_

Chelsea didn't know what she did first, blush to herself - and the chick fluttering around, mocking her - or trip over her feet. Her breath caught as she landed on her hands and knees, hard enough to make them both turn red.

She let out a low, distressed moan. She was distracted for about five seconds before the foreboded blush crept back to her face. She remembered what she'd done the first time: let out soundless, disagreeing squeaks and then just shutting up altogether.

She looked down minutely at her body, repulsed. She was definitely too thin to be considered pretty, she thought. It might've been all those sleepless nights from shift working, or maybe it was genetics, or maybe she'd turned this slight when she arrived here, but she was just definitely too skinny. Too uncoordinated, too flimsy.

Her skin, which had never been too pale or tan to begin with, was losing some of its burnt-ness from neglecting her crops and spending the last eternity in the chicken coop.

Speaking of which…

She looked across the building at the yellow delinquent. It chirp-gawked at her, and her blood boiled hotly under her skin. "Look," she spat at long last, feeling delusional as she began to lecture the evil feathered friend. "I know you don't like me. And I don't like you either, okay? I didn't _ask _the old man to show up at my farm, talk some crap about how I hated my dumb job, and then give me a stupid bird: AKA, you. But the least you can do is cooperate with me here. I at least deserve some respect. R-E-S-P-E-C-T…"

The longest silence ever breeched.

Chelsea's eyebrow twitched. "…Got it?"

The chick was calm for about a sixth of a second before it began squawking at her at the top of its tiny lungs, flailing around madly, making sure to rake its claws against Chelsea's hand in the process. Chelsea yelled out an immature curse word, threw a fifth of the birdfeed onto the middle of the floor, and stomped out of the coop, having appropriately decided to name her new farm-mate, 'Douche.'

--

"Stupid…dumb…bird…" Chelsea grumbled in an undertone as she strode down the path leading away from her farm, arms folded sulkily. "I haven't had a stupid…pet since my stupid…gerbil died…it was a class gerbil, too…stupid…I hate animals…and birds…I'm freaking _allergic_…"

A small rash had trickled down her forearm, but at least she wasn't having a sneeze attack. As long as she distanced herself from the _larger _livestock, she'd be okay…

Chelsesa rubbed her arm irritably when she suddenly noticed a building _without _a boarded-up door. Normally, in the city, the countryside, anywhere, a building wouldn't be very big of a deal, even one with the nicest, biggest door in the world. But on an abandoned, just recently re-inhabited island, it was. On an uneven rectangular board that slightly resembled a sign, etched into the wood, were the words…well, word: _Shop. _

Never very girly, and not a huge fan of shopping, she was still elated to see that the island was finally developing some kind of…civilization. She hurried up to the feeble wooden door, hesitated slightly, and then pushed it open.

"Welcome!"

She nearly fell over backward at the instantaneous greeting. Looking over, she could see a short man with ragged black hair behind the counter, looking rather exuberant at the very sight of her.

"Oh, Chelsea!" he cried unexpectedly, in a voice that could've hypothetically resembled a hug. "It's great to see you again! Come in! Have a look around!"

She nodded, feeling just a little bad for not remembering this man's name - or ever meeting him, at all. She had faint memories of her first week, Taro dragging her out of her dilapidated farm house to shake hands with newcomers, but all the introductions had been brief. After making up excuses about farmwork, she'd left shortly every time. Now she was beginning to regret it, wondering who else had arrived that she could've missed…

"Is that chocolate?" Her eyes widened when they located the sweet delicacy.

A neatly wrapped, brandless chocolate bar glowed from the simple panoply on the counter. It stood out among all the other incomprehendable items, and even if she'd never been an addict, she couldn't even describe how badly she craved for it right now.

"That'll be 100G!"

Her face fell drastically. The man, whose name she still couldn't remember, looked bemused. "You don't even have 100G…?" he questioned dubiously.

"Well…it's not like…I don't….no," she answered feebly.

She heard him mutter something in a voice that was no longer complacent and pleasant. Something along the lines of "I'll be in the back if you need me…and have money," as he lumbered behind a long, thick wall.

Chelsea sighed. She wondered, pettily, if anyone would notice if she took a chocolate bar. Just one little chocolate bar in that big stack that would be put to waste…

A light wind outside that shook the trees caused her to turn, her lips pulled down on the corners. There was no point in staying anymore, really. The last thing she needed was a heap of chocolate she couldn't eat and a manipulative storekeeper.

She had just reached the threshold when it caught her eye. A strange marking that couldn't possibly have resembled anything, carved lackadaisically into the doorframe. It looked kind of like a word, some deformed hyroglyphic…

_Well, whatever, _she mused, and left the store without another lingering thought in her mind.

If only she could brush anything off like that. _Well, whatever_. That would be damn nice.

She let her feet take her to the beach shack, just for something to do, and to her blatant annoyance, she found another odd marking inside. Perhaps it was vandalism, or an accidental, natural dent. She located the left-behind bed that was shoved against the wall on one side and sat down on it, surprised to find it oddly comfortable.

Compared to her itchy, straw-stuffed bed, though, anything else could be considered comfortable, really. She curled onto her side, a sudden drowsiness tugging at her eyelids and pulling them down, and she found that she didn't have the energy or will to get back up.

Not once did she notice the faded purple bandana strewn against the bedpost.

--

Denny was a bit of a drifter. Kind of like his brother Kai, or his cousin Ray. It wasn't that he wanted to pretend to be mysterious or romantic or however the hell some people liked to interpret it, but his attention simply could not be held for long. His main object was usually just to find a place with good fishing, and reasonable accommodations and friendly townsfolk were always a plus, too. The thing was, his expectations were never high; he simply wished to find a place he liked and stay there. Nothing was set in stone.

But all his life, he'd had trouble finding a sense of belonging. Even with his family; they'd all been either travelers or workaholics, so there was no point in really staying behind, trapped and bored in the unexciting suburbia. That had been his motto, at a time: there was no point to anything. The connotation wasn't meant to sound depressive, but rather, look-on-the-bright-side-ish. He liked the sense of freedom. He liked being allowed to do what he wanted.

And even though he'd thought he'd been hoping for it the whole time, he actually _didn__'__t _really like the sense of attachment. When he'd arrived on the island for the first time on a meagre ship, he'd thought the beach was quite pretty, and that was it with his first impressions. When he'd gone exploring and foraging, he found that he liked the challenge of having no bridges to cross. He liked the frank wilderness and the whole fight-to-live mantra. And, lastly, he liked the people living here, with one obvious exceptions. There weren't many people to begin with, but he could see himself getting along with them. In time, the island would be filled with people, and he knew it.

"Hey, Denny! I caught one!"

Denny, broken free from his web of thoughts, looked over his tan shoulder at the child dancing around with his precious fishing rod. Well, it used to be of complete value to him. But now he just really…didn't care.

"Really? …Wow, nice…_Nice! _Damn - I mean, wow, Charlie! That's a good one!" Denny put his hands on his hips, half-admiring and half-resenting the large, flapping fish the boy had dragged onto the shore.

Mockingly, it flopped its silvery tail at him and splashed water onto his knees.

"…Denny?"

He'd only noticed now that he'd been staring blankly into the space, not even at the fish. "Oh, uh, yeah." He scratched the back of his neck absently. "Want me show you how to gut it, kid? Or is it too much for you to handle?"

"Bring it!" Charlie cried enthusiastically, and like Denny, turned his full attention back to the fish, beaming with pride.

"Uh…let me just go grab my stuff, 'kay? I'll be back in a minute." Breaking his gaze, he started for the beach shack. Fishing, for him, was another story. It was just a hobby, of the few hobbies he had, and it had merely grown on him. He felt no passion when he fished, no amazing sense of completion - he just liked it, and that was it. When he liked something, he tended to grow attached to it.

"Okay," he thought he heard the boy say as he sauntered off, and sighed as he arrived at the door.

Too attached. His liking to the island started to feel almost…possessive. Like it had some kind of _grip _on him. Regardless, if he had the choice to stay here, finally _stay_ and not just go drifting off for the rest of his life, he…

His footfalls fell short and all movements ceased when he saw the tiny farm girl snoring softly in his bed, his bandana somehow having found a way around her waist, draping over her form like an old blanket.

A light chuckle left him as he tiptoed in, grabbed all the fishing gear he could get his hands on - the dullest blade, he checked - and then tiptoed out.

Nah, he definitely wouldn't be leaving for a while.

--

A/N: _Haha, so Denny found out he has a roommate. Well, then. I'll leave the rest of the foreshadowing up to your lovely imaginations…_


	5. Five: Six Feet Under the Stars

_A/N: __Hey, I'm sorry again for the long wait. Not only is my mind kind of barren of ideas (and it would be lovely if you could supply me with some in a review or PM), but I've been a bit occupied lately with friends, and 'the adults', who are trying to strip me of my freedom. So, anyway, this chapter was, ironically enough, inspired while listening to 'Six Feet Under the Stars' by All Time Low, 'Oh Star' by Paramore, and 'I Will Follow You Into the Dark' by Death Cab for Cutie. I'll admit, I'm not happy with this chapter and it's more of a filler than anything else, but I couldn't leave you guys empty-stomached. Er, empty-minded. Or whatever. _

**Six Feet Under the Stars. **

_--_

Chelsea had never seen stars, not in her entire life. It was kind of ironic; she'd just never paid much attention to the sky, was all. Whenever someone said "night sky", an irresolute image of a thick black sheet filled her mind. An empty, blank space with no pretty glimmering stars to fill it. Maybe it was plain ignorance or something else; when the city air wasn't all cloudy and disgusting with factory smog, she was usually already asleep. Truth be told, if someone asked her to describe a real-life star, she wouldn't know how to. She could only pull out the fiction she'd drawn from fairytales and stories: silver? gold? dense, packed? sparse, scant?

It was funny, since she dreamed about stars that night. In fact, she'd been dreaming about stars a lot lately, and the images had been obscure and eclectic each time. Just something from a dream and nothing more.

Her most recent dream, as a whole, seemed rather surreal…one might assume she were under the influence or something, if they had the eyes to see into her subconscious thoughts.

Chelsea, on the other hand, found it pretty damn ironic.

--

_The stars were out that night, entering the stretch of pitch blackness with a burst of light, like a rainbow with no clouds. Each star had a very pronounced shape - starlike, of course. They were bright yellow, the yellow of sunflowers and daffodils and spring sun, but in a texture that looked like plastecene. _

_Beside the rivulet of stars, which filtered in from the void of the sky like sunlight streaming through the weak glass of a window, was a crescent moon, curved and glowing palely. Comically, there sat atop the half-moon__'__s sinuous head a soft-looking hat, light purple with a little white ball on the end. The moon__'__s eyes were slid shut, a look of perfect peace present on its sleeping, fictional face. _

_Under the brilliant display of stars and night and sky, there was Chelsea, toiling away in her field. Sweat ran down her forehead and thickly down her arms and back. A farming tool she__'__d been tinkling with had clattered to its side, chipped roughly and looking indebted to her for the rest. _

_Beside Chelsea was a cow, however out of place that sounded. The marble-white-and-black-smeared beast was grazing the dark green grass, chewing in that wide, sloppy, revolting way that cows did. _

_Chelsea lifted her arm to examine the skin, and like flowers popping up in unrealistic, untimely seconds like they did on TV commercials back in the city, blotchy hives began to form on her arm. She swatted at the red marks frantically as they accumulated - poppies in a field. _

_And then there was Denny. Out of nowhere, he appeared. But that was nothing new, was it? _

"_You look kind of stiff,__"__ he told her, a cheeky grin on his face, and in a sudden flurry of colours and a blinding light, the whole farm, Denny__'__s face, the stars and moon and sky and everything disappeared and was replaced by a familiar, endless blue. _

_Chelsea stood at the end of the dock, her heels perched precariously at the sharp, broken edges. Her arms were outstretched, and the waves sparkled below her, looking tempting in ways it never did in reality. She blinked, and a large ship was suddenly rocking in front of her, wooden and sturdy-looking and enormous. _

"_Where are you going?__"__ called a voice from behind her, far distant and muffled. _

"_I__'__m leaving,__"__ Chelsea answered flatly, not turning around. _

"_Don__'__t leave,__"__ pleaded the same voice in what couldn__'__t have even passed for a whisper. Maybe a barely-there breeze in the widespread air surrounding the world. _

_But she had boarded the ship now and it was gone, gone forever. _

--

Hours later, Chelsea had come to the conclusion that, if she had even the slightest ability to draw, she should've considered being an artist.

The memory of the dream was so everlastingly vivid, so sharp and pronounced that she had difficulty remembering whether or not certain parts had actually occurred. She thought back to the sunshine-yellow stars and the cornstarch moon and automatically looked up.

Her expectations were crushed. Hazy blue-gray, cloudy skies and dim, glaring, I-hope-I-woke-you-up sun was what stared back at her. She squinted and looked back down into the gently pouring river below her.

It felt like she had gone back to square one, week one. It was like she hadn't progressed in the least over the amount of time she'd spent on the island - and truthfully, she hadn't done much, besides meet Denny and get an imprudent, savage, yellow, two-legged creature, which she'd begrudgingly fed after she'd rolled out of bed in the early hours of the A.M. and trudged all the way back to her farm.

However, with the fishing rod glued in her two hands, well, it was already starting to feel tedious. The monotony of the habit-in-the-making…Hadn't the whole point of moving out been to escape the tedium? And not to mention, she hadn't gotten a single bite…

She tried to ignore the fact that there was a better chance of catching a fish in the ocean, and then tried to ignore the consequential self-nagging. _You__'__re ignoring Denny. You__'__re ignoring Denny. Dishonest brat. _

Was there really any reason _to _ignore Denny? It wasn't like he'd done anything to her, or vice-versa. He was her…acquaintance. The closest thing to it on the little island, at least. She just didn't have the…initiative, the motivation to talk with him, she decided at long last. Having a conversation with him usually took the equal amount of effort as tilling an entire field.

_Um, yeah, whatever. You__'__re ignoring him and that__'__s that. There__'__s no excuse. _

"Ugh." She pulled away from the stream with a scowl carved into her face, deeply annoyed by her tangle of thoughts. Not bothering to drop it off at the farm first, she lugged her fishing rod alongside her as she started walking in any direction that pointed in front of her.

Ironically, she was making a direct beeline for the beach. She stopped halfway through the fork in the road. In front of her, the beach. To her side, the store, and all the chocolate she couldn't have. Her scowl deepened as she twisted around and strode into a field she'd never entered before.

--

Denny groaned as he brought a hand around to massage his stiff, tense back. Sleeping on the sand wasn't nearly as comfortable as it looked; the inappropriately named sand beds felt hard rock as he laid onto his side and drifted into restless slumber just last night. When he'd awoken, the first thing he'd noticed - and felt - was the sharp ache in his back. When he pulled himself upright, his head pulled along the rest of the world up with him and it took him a few moments to adjust.

_You should__'__ve just woken her up, _his inside voice berated him. But when Denny saw Chelsea's sleeping form on the cot he'd been staying nights in since his arrival, the thought had never even crossed his mind. After seeing each cloud of distress, misery, dejection, bleakness and feebleness cross her face one after another, the untainted, untouched, almost appeased look on her face and body was comforting to see. He didn't want to take it away.

He sucked in the salty ocean scent. To be honest, he'd been waiting for her to come outside the shack all day. For all he knew, she could've left at dawn while he was still sleeping and wasn't even on the beach anymore, but he had patience - and hope, however brittle it was.

A tug at the end of his line brought his thoughts to a decline. He wrestled and pulled and gritted his teeth - to dramatize things, make it look cooler in case someone was secretly watching, of course - until his hook dragged back up the shore.

Nothing.

He sighed, grabbing the bare hook by its dull, wet curve. He turned to his side to retrieve bait, but was forced to stop abruptly.

Again, nothing.

He let out a small, immature grunt of exaggerated strain as he pulled himself to his feet. A short visit to the new shop for some bait wouldn't hurt, would it? It beat sitting around and waiting. For all he knew, Chelsea could still be fast asleep, having no hopes of getting out of bed until late afternoon.

On the other hand, Denny didn't know much today.

--

It was like stepping into a dream. And as badly as Chelsea felt the urge to smack herself for using the overused, obsolete, completely lame metaphor, there really were no other words to describe the experience of coming across this vast plane.

The field she'd seen upon continuing down the pathway wasn't anything amazing. The grass wasn't the most heartbreakingly beautiful dazzling brilliant viridian green she had ever seen in her life; the sky didn't suddenly look bluer and clearer and brighter over this chunk of the island; there weren't fairies with iridescent, translucent butterfly wings skipping through the air with their arms linked.

No, but the thing was, this wide lot was different. Unique. Chelsea had been seeing so much brown lately - the buildings, the tree trunks, her house, the (rather vacant) shipping bin, the sand at the beach - that she'd been starting to get sick of it. In fact, the only shade of brown she'd enjoyed seeing lately was the crisp colour of toast, for a reason she couldn't quite recall at the moment.

And she didn't want to recall it. All she wanted to do was stare, stare at the long rows of grass, which blew and rolled along with the gentle waves of wind. The field was enormous, and she was barely able to see the hem of the horizon, far in the distance. She'd taken but a step in the surreal land before a furry russet figure bounded in front of her.

She almost screamed. It took her about two seconds to identify the inhuman being - was it a squirrel? Chipmunk? She didn't know the difference, but it was one or the other. She stared at the animal, not having seen one up close since Douche, who was just unnatural and demonic. The furry chipmunk-squirrel itched at its tiny, round head with an even tinier paw. Chelsea almost aw'ed.

"Hello?"

She whirled around, startled at the unfamiliar voice, feeling her cheeks furl; she hoped she hadn't been caught gawking at the day-to-day squirrel. Recently, she had only been used to three voices thus far - her own feeble voice, another male's amused and playful chatter, and an old man's whiny demands.

There was a man standing a few feet away from her, his clothes unfitting both for someone who lived in a city and one who lived on an island.

"Um, hi," Chelsea responded, seconds too late.

The man watched her indifferently, his eyes scanning hers with little interest. It was like they were in some commonplace park, or in a mall, and not some island off the coast of who-knows-where.

"Do you possibly know where I could find a man by the name of 'Taro'?" he continued to ask, his eyes glazed and face bored.

Chelsea felt her eyebrows stitch in confusion. The old man had company? She wasn't sure what she had to say or think about that. "Um…yeah, he lives in one of the buildings at the end of the path, on the right," she directed him, pulling the instructions out of the map in her mind.

The man nodded once, memorizing her words. "Thanks," he grunted shortly, and strode past her abruptly, formalities omitted. Chelsea scratched her head in his absence, puzzled.

"Well…see you," she called into the empty silence shortly after he'd left in his long, sweeping steps. She turned back to the field, which had seemed to lose its majesty and inimitable appeal in his presence. That stranger was buzz kill.

Feet pivoting, she retraced her footsteps, and after a deep breath and one butterfly fluttering through her stomach later - _just one_ - she made her way for the sands of the beach.

To her disappointment and relief, though more relief, the purple-clad man she'd been expecting was nowhere to be seen, and she whirled around immediately and started her trek back to her farm, since it was becoming quite dark, night looming on the edge above her head.

As she walked, there was some odd buzzing in her head. Not literally the incessant humming of bees, but some unspoken thoughts which she couldn't depict. It created a discreet emotion in the backseats of her mind, stirred a sort of anxiety in her stomach which eluded her. What could possibly be causing this? Shouldn't _she_ know, rationally?

And then the dream hit her. The stupid pointless star dream. But what she thought of wasn't the comical stars, nor the snoozing moon, nor the fat and completely irrelevant cow, but simply two things: Denny, and the ship.

Denny, first of all, because, well, it was _Denny_. He'd been invading her thoughts more than the chocolate that eluded her, his voice a constant background conscience to hers. She didn't know what she found so interesting about him - the fact that he was some type of drifter, someone who fished for a living, someone who actually _wanted _to live on an island, as far as she knew. But she _didn__'__t_ know, and that annoyed her.

But lastly, what she thought of was the ship. The enormous replica of one she'd seen in a movie when she'd been littler - _Pirates of the Caribbean_? Ah, that one; it had always been one of her favourites, and Orlando had always been quite the eye candy…

She backtracked. If possible, there was some subliminal, minor, secret part of her that longed…to leave. Some part of her that wanted _out_. Some part that wanted to leave the peaceful, wild island and return to the grimy city streets. Some part of her that preferred greasy fast food to wild herbs and freshwater fish.

No, she thought, it wasn't a secret. It wasn't minor. It was blatantly _obvious_, what she wanted. It was totally, completely clear in her mind that she wanted to go home, whatever home meant to her now. She wanted that ship in her dream to come to the real dock, yeah, the broken one - and she wanted to board it and leave. Like her imaginary self had, she'd sail far away, deep into the horizon, so far that not even her mind could reach back and touch the visual photographs of the island.

And then she thought of Denny again, and she didn't know what she wanted.

When she had gotten back to her farm, it was already dark. She called it a day, frowning when her back slid against the hard, flat surface of the bed and wishing she could have spent just one more night in the one at the beach shack. But she had felt some sort of ominous feeling when she had awoken there, one of unfamiliarity and something compelling. She didn't belong there; she belonged in this crappy, uncomfortable, shoddy farm house.

Right now, she didn't really know where she belonged.

--

Denny sighed as he set his fishing gear down on the floor and a dusty, long table in the shack. Just a few minutes ago, he'd returned to the beach, biting his lip and stepping on his feet and taking deep breaths outside the shack. It'd taken a lot of senseless bursts of courage and mindless split-second decision, but he'd knocked tartly, waited an eternity, and then creaked the door open, his breath still hiding in his throat. He'd expected to see Chelsea asleep in the bed, breathing softly…maybe standing up, taking a look around.

But to his utter disappointment and annoyance, he'd found the building empty. So he'd done all that for nothing, consoled himself to make interaction with a dumb, ditched shack. Yeah, ditched. He knew it probably wasn't Chelsea's fault, and it really wasn't, but that was how he felt - ditched. Forgotten.

Pulling out of his memory, he dejectedly realized he'd forgotten his fishing rod, of all things, on the dock, and went out the door to go retrieve it. Just as he'd walked up the final boards of the narrow berth and grabbed the flimsy rod by its handle, he saw the clear yellow refraction in the waves. Dancing, dazzling, minimized spheres of light, mirrored by the dark blue ocean.

His eyes flickered skyward and he muttered a "Damn," and found that he couldn't break his gaze. When was the last time he'd seen something so breathtakingly…pretty? He tried not to sound mushy, over the _sky_, no less, and finally looked away.

His final thought was that whoever couldn't see the amazing celestial display today could only be ignorant.

--

A/N: _So...many...words...so...much...crap...blah. If you have any concrit in regards to this chapter, I don't need to be told twice. It slightly blew, I know; I'll make up for it. XD And if you're wondering, Chelsea might be dreaming quite often, if you look at the pattern. _


	6. Six: Seasons

A/N:_ Hey, guys! Sorry about last time's chapter. This next one is filled with plot. I hope the walls of text do not scare you away, and you catch the references. My only concern is that I'm moving too fast…I mean, after five chapters of stalling, I thought it was time to get things rolling. So thanks for waiting and like usual, please give me your feedback. :D_

**Seasons. **

--

Denny wished he could walk like this forever.

He had pushed every negative thought, every doubt into a little corner in his mind to be shunned for as long as he could manage. With his hands shoved into his pockets, he ambled down the path in light, not-rushed steps. There wasn't a problem present in his head…in fact, not a single thought passed through him.

If only everything could be this easy. This carefree. If only he could walk forever.

He came into the farm clearing, an idle smile on his face. In his slow, contented stroll, he turned the corner behind the spacey farmhouse, a hello waiting in his throat.

The sight that met him was not pleasant. Chelsea was lying in the distance with her nose in the dirt, arms sprawled out at her sides.

He stopped walking.

And ran.

--

It hurt. Chelsea blinked, but all she saw was black each time, inky clouds that wouldn't go away. How annoying. She struggled to get rid of the scary darkness, but to no avail. When she wasn't trying to fight the pain, numb and searing at the same time, she listened hard. There was slow breathing by her side and the faint sound of waves crashing against the shore in the distance.

She let out an unintelligible groan. She wanted to say something along the lines of a cliché "Where am I?" but all that came out was "Unnhhh."

The deep breathing by her side picked up and she felt warm hands touch her cheek. "You alive?" came a gentle, undeniable voice.

Chelsea felt red rush to her cheeks. Another moan left her lips, this time the context of her intentions unclear to herself.

"I found you passed out in your field," Denny explained, as if they were holding a perfectly normal conversation. "I freaked out and brought you to the shack. Can you sit up?"

There was a silence. Then, "Mmf…no."

He chuckled lightly. "Well, alright."

A long, pregnant silence ensued. Chelsea felt her consciousness slip away and pull back, like a child gripping the ends of his blanket in the midst of a nightmare. "Denny?" she breathed when she could no longer feel his appeasing presence.

"Mm…yeah?"

Senseless mumbles tumbled out of her mouth, barely coherent to even herself. "Do you…believe in miracles?"

There was a short pause. "What do you mean?" She couldn't depict the background of his voice; her consciousness was leaning towards unconscious at this point.

"Denny…?" she uttered, sinking into the warm, comforting fingers she felt brush her cheek.

"What is it?"

It took a moment until she replied, her voice but a heavy breath from her throat. "Denny?" she heaved out of her lips strenuously, definitely slipping now.

"Yeah?"

"…I do." She burrowed into the relatively comfortable fabric that encased her. "What…do you think?"

"I think…" The empty consonant lingered in the air. "…That you should go to sleep. You're exhausted," he finished, rather disappointingly.

"No…" she mumbled, shifting when she heard a feathery sigh. "What…day is it?"

"Nearly the end of spring. You've been unconscious for two days, you know." His voice was thick with concern.

"Mm….I know."_Not really. _

Denny began to ramble out of nowhere. "Speaking of which…I hope it's a hot summer. There's nothing as good and cliché as nice hot summer sun on a soon-to-be thriving island…I mean, it's not like we've been having too much rain to begin with, but I have a feeling this season's going to be hot and dry. Don't you agree?"

Chelsea didn't have the strength to.

"I'll have that hard shell of yours cracked by then, promise. Midsummer at most. Must be pretty jarring to get tossed onto the shore of an island like you did, huh?" Strange, his warm, restful fingers were still connected to her cheek. She didn't so much mind. "You'll warm up to me by then. I mean, I know you think I'm annoying, but pretty soon you'll get used to it. Promise."

"Mm."

She heard another light chuckle and then nothing at all.

--

Chelsea used to think Denny was always right, but she - and he - were proved wrong.

As he hadn't predicted, spring rolled into the very humid summer like the rain that tumbled frequently from the sky, speckling the dirt in spots of dark brown. The first few days of summer had been hot, and uncomfortably so: Chelsea found her clothes constantly sticking to her back, finding the need to bathe several times throughout the day, with little time to waste. But soon enough, clouds began to roll thickly in front of the blazing sun and fat, invigorating globules fell, splattering against Chelsea's red cheeks and sticky skin.

From then on, Chelsea, as grateful as she'd ever been in her life, didn't need to worry about getting up at six in the morning to water her new summer crops everyday thanks to the timely weather. She found that the only time she spent at her farm was occupied either by lazing around idly in bed, or by feeding (and flagrantly ignoring) Douche, who was beginning to show generous signs of growth, evolving from a pompous yellow chick to a white-feathered, beak-held-high hen, constantly strutting around like she owned the place. The change was good and bad; good, because she had begun to produce small white eggs, little in size but eggs nonetheless, which Chelsea would be sure to leech off of as efficiently as she could; and bad, because Douche was hard enough to deal with as a little chick.

Also, given the extra free time, (Chelsea had sent up a thank-you to Lady Luck as she left her farmhouse each morning), she now had a wide, free space available to herself in the mornings and afternoons. When she wasn't staggering around looking for those oh-so bitter herbs she revolted in the refreshing drizzle, she was either fishing or hanging out with Denny. Both activities seemed to correspond with each other; when she fished, she fished with Denny. When she hung out with Denny, they fished. They also talked, sometimes their conversations casual and joking, and sometimes intellectual and controversial, but they both managed to pass each other's time contentedly.

Denny had been right about one thing: he was definitely starting to loosen the invisible ropes that Chelsea had wrapped herself in the moment she was stranded on the island, hopeless as a hamster in a cage. She found herself smiling a lot more, laughing a lot and speaking louder and more frequently than she usually did.

The island, also, was becoming less like an unaccustomed refuge and more like…well, while she still couldn't call it home, it was becoming more like something that resembled it. A few of the absconded buildings had been rejuvenated, Taro and a burly woman Chelsea had remembered meeting once only because of her boisterous and jovial attitude - Mirabelle, if she recalled - had been fixing up the houses together, along with Taro's two grandchildren, Elliot and Natalie, who had been doing more arguing than fixing.

One afternoon, Chelsea had stopped by to say hi, just out of politeness, since she couldn't elude Taro forever, and also because she'd decided that disliking him was petty and unnecessary on the small island. With hope and light clear in his eyes, he'd seated her down at a table and gotten a kind woman named Felicia to boil her some crap-tasting tea. Chelsea had sipped it, and _sipped _it, as in she sucked in the acerbic essence that emitted the liquid until it seemed to evaporate into the air inside her mouth, as Taro rambled on about his plans for the future.

He'd make posters, get people to stick them on great billboards in the bustling city, write advertisements and put them in the newspaper. He'd attract to the island a bunch of people both urban and rural areas, some just to fill space (Chelsea had coughed politely at this point, but the subtle action had gone by unnoticed), and others who felt like retiring from their renowned occupations. There would be pop stars coming to reside on the island, a lineage of famous gastronomists, and some people that would also help benefit the farm, he had added, probably just for Chelsea's sake as she nodded every few minutes, smiling whenever he'd suddenly be struck with another lightning bolt of inspiration.

And after the long day of listening to an old man's chatter and hopes and dreams, she had walked down the path and to the beach. Her muscles wouldn't be sore and aching and tired like they usually were after lugging around water and tilling soil everyday, but she felt under-worked and restless, which was definitely new for her. Then she would see Denny sitting at the edge of the dock, looking like he might fall off, he was so close - sometimes he would be accompanied by Charlie, the kid of the shopkeeper. Other times there would be birds flanking him, white ones, black ones, ones that ornithologists might never have named, that would just flap around his head and he'd nonchalantly regard.

However, today - specifically, this drizzling midsummer afternoon - was different. As Chelsea ducked under the encroaching fog that surrounded the wide path leading into the beach, she surveyed the area. To her surprise, the purple-clad fisherman was nowhere to be seen. She walked all the way up to the dock, just about to call his name, when she heard a tinkling voice from behind her.

"Hey, Chelsea. Come here… shh, you might scare the fish away."

She could hear the amusement and the verge of laughter building up in his voice at her startled reaction. "Denny?" For some incomprehensible reason, she was whispering, feeling silly. "Where are you?" She turned around imperceptibly.

"Over here. Get off the dock and go right."

Instead of following his rudimentary directions, she followed the sound of his voice, which drifted along the rocky wall that permeated the ocean brine. She took slow, deliberate steps, jumping when she saw the exuberant face that came into view.

"You'll _never _guess what I found," he exclaimed, his fervent volume in contrast to Chelsea's whispers catching her off guard. The usual fishing rod was slung carelessly over his shoulder.

"What did you find?" she asked, looking over cautiously, almost expecting to see a severed human head, or something gruesome. But she saw nothing. "Denny?"

"You're looking on the land." She could feel his eyes on her, amused, as usual. "Look in the water," he hinted finally.

She met his gaze briefly, puzzled, and he grinned back at her. She turned her head and looked into the water, where a beat-up aluminum boat rocked in the gently recurring waves. It looked like a forcibly elongated tin can.

"So? What do you think?" He was ecstatic, obviously. Chelsea continued to stare at the…thing. After the struck-by-lightning-and-stranded-on-an-abandoned-island incident, she hadn't been very fond of ships and all its relatives.

"Well?" Denny pressed, almost anxiously.

It rocked again, waving at her.

"It's…um…modest," she managed at last, a similar grin playing on her lips when Denny burst into understanding laughter.

"So harsh," he joked, and started for the boat, Chelsea trailing a few steps behind. "But this isn't what I wanted to show you. Not exactly."

"What? Is there a giant, writhing shark inside the boat?"

Denny rolled his eyes, letting out another breathy chuckle instead of answering her. He leaned over the boat and hoisted out a heavy-looking, chunky rectangular prism, stuffed to the point of bursting.

"Denny, tell me that isn't fish you put inside…" She eyed the opaque block he had lugged onto the sandy surface warily.

He rolled his eyes again. "Open it," he commanded briefly, ignoring her sarcastic comment and shoving at the baggage lightly. It landed horizontally, nearly flattening Chelsea's toes.

She gave him another cautious, yellow-light look, before squatting over. She scanned the odd-shaped bag and found a silver, slightly rusted zipper lining the sides. It had been a while since she'd seen a zipper. She followed the jagged teeth with her finger until she found the paperclip-esque handle. She tugged on it slowly, the light _rip_ of the opening process making her insides tingle with nostalgia and discreet familiarity.

The contents of the prism made her breath hitch in her throat.

It didn't take a severed head to make her react this way. And Chelsea was not a screamer, not a little girl at heart, not a squealer - but when she looked inside, she had to bite back the urge to let out the highest, girliest of piglet squeals.

"My luggage," she managed, her pitch high as soprano. She stared at all the clothes she'd packed, all the trivial knick-knacks as well, like photographs and eyeliner and books and - she wanted to sob - _soap_. "How the…the firetrucking _hell _did you manage…manage to find my luggage?" she stammered.

It took Denny a few seconds to answer. "The same way I found you," he answered at last. "Stranded, collapsed onto its side, and a little rusty around the edges. I just needed to drag it back down to reality. Told you I could crack you eventually, didn't I?"

Instead of answering, Chelsea stared at her believed to be lost things, fully beaming. Rooting through her poorly-organized belongings, she noticed they were damp, but still rather dry for a suitcase that had been afloat for weeks. "Jeremy!" she cried suddenly, hugging a small black device to her chest.

Denny raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"My iPod," Chelsea explained shortly, not looking at him as she sighed and stored it delicately back inside the suitcase. She stopped digging through her belongings when she remembered Denny still existed, and looked up at him gratefully. "Thanks. You have no idea how much I owe you after this."

Denny simply grinned and threw a firm, gentle arm around her. "Can I make some suggestions?"

--

A/N: _Yeah, I'm pretty aware that the ending was rather abrupt and choppy. But...my muse was found and it's telling me to just shut up and make do with what I have, so that's exactly what I did. xD Nonetheless, feed me crit._


End file.
